


as my memory rests (but never forgets what i lost)

by nessismore



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Comfort, Deathfic, Friendship, Gen, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-30
Updated: 2013-07-30
Packaged: 2017-12-21 21:58:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/905413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nessismore/pseuds/nessismore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dealing with all the things he's lost, Steve finds friendship in an unexpected place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	as my memory rests (but never forgets what i lost)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks very much to blackglass, katertots, and merideath for talking me through the writing of this fic! All errors are mine!
> 
> Title comes from Green Day's "Wake Me Up When September Ends."

Steve stares down at the headstone. It’s cold and gray in the late morning drizzle, nothing at all like the man who rested beneath it. Gabe Jones. Steve traces the letters of his name as he thinks of the big man who’d been his friend, who’d saved his life on more than one occasion. He remembers Gabe laughing with Dernier as the two of told tell stories in a tumbled mix of English and French. Steve remembers him sitting quietly in the corner of a tent, faithfully writing his girl back home, and he remembers Gabe’s face when the Dear John letter caught up with them somewhere in France. Steve remembers solidity, comfort, courage, all of those things that aren’t etched into granite that so succinctly sums up Gabe’s life. Gabe Jones. Born. Died. Requiescat in pace. The last of the Howling Commandos to die. 

With a heavy heart, Steve presses his fingers to the headstone and bows his head. This is his goodbye, his last goodbye, to the men who’d followed him into the jaws of death, trusting him to know enough to lead them to safety. Steve had hoped to find at least some of the Commandos alive and well, but reading the files, he knew he’d be visiting headstones. Dernier in France, the snowy mountains where Bucky had died, Falsworth in England, then to Morita in Fresno, then to Dum Dum in Boston, and finally back to New York, to say his goodbyes to Gabe.

He straightens, barely feeling the light drip of water over him as he stares at the headstone, at a loss as to what to do next. He hadn’t quite been expecting this experience to be cathartic. But he’d hoped somehow that it would give him some semblance of peace. Peace isn’t what he’s feeling now. Instead, his body is still heavy with the grief that’s been his shadow for the past eight months. 

The faint thrum of tires on wet road reaches his ears, and he turns to see a girl in a truck pull to the side of the road nearest him. She leaves the truck idling and steps out, shivering slightly even with her coat and knit hat. She wraps her arms around herself, ducks her head to keep the water out of her face. Her dark hair curtains her face. With aching sadness weighing down her shoulders, she looks almost ghostly in the misty light. 

She looks up, right at him, and he realizes he knows her. It takes a moment to match a name to her face. Darcy Lewis. He knows she works somewhere in Stark Tower, but he hadn’t expected to see a familiar face here.

“Hey,” she calls out. “You want a ride?”

He’d taken the subway here from Stark Tower, then wandered on foot through the maze of mishmash of tombstones, following the directions the jarringly cheerful woman on the phone had given him to Gabe’s grave. The darkened skies had suited his mood then. They still do. But now he just feels weary, and he’s tired of being cold.

He nods. She gets back into the truck and waits as he climbs into the passenger seat. “Where to?” she asks.

“The subway station on 33rd.” 

She peers out the window, lips turning down in a frown. “I’m headed into Manhattan. If you’re going that way, a car might be better than a subway. Roomier, at least.”

If he thinks about it, the last place he wants to be is underground. So he nods. “Grand Central would be good. If you can manage it.”

“Yeah. Okay.” They don’t speak. Only the radio, turned down so low the songs are indistinguishable lyrics over sad, but soothing melodies, breaks the silence. Outside, the drizzle turns into a steady rain. Steve watching the tombstones, thinking of lost friends under the refrain of _what’s next? what’s next?_

She turns to him as they reach the cemetery gates. “I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m—” 

“Darcy. Dr. Foster’s assistant. I remember. I’m Steve.”

“I remember. Just wanted to make sure you knew whose car you’re in.” The wry smile she sends his way transforms her from ghostly to someone earthy and tangible, but it does nothing to banish the sadness behind her eyes. Her gaze dart everywhere, watching the road, peeking at mirrors, studying him.

He waits for her to ask who he was seeing at the cemetery, or to fill the silence with small talk and empty chatter. She doesn’t. For once, he’s the one uncomfortable with quiet. It gives him time to think, to let memories prickle at his skin the way they have been for the past eight months. This time it’s worse, more raw, because once he gets back to the tower, _what next_? After he came out from the ice, the fight against the Chitauri gave him purpose. So did his trip to find the Commandos. There are no aliens to fight, no missions to go on. His feet are planted firmly on the ground this time, and that sense of overwhelming loneliness is chasing at his heels. 

Because of the rain, traffic has slowed to a crawl. It takes them almost twice as long to get into Manhattan than it would have taken him by subway, but he doesn’t mind so much. Whether he’s with one person or hundreds, it doesn’t change the thoughts running through his head. Something about the woman beside him tells him maybe she’d know something about that, too.

“You want tea?” Darcy asks, shooting him a look that he can’t read as they enter the borough. “You look like you could use some tea.”

“I—“ He’s not ready to fall into the yawning abyss of loneliness. Not yet. So he nods. He expects her to park at any number of cafes they pass along the way. Instead, she pulls into a parking lot beside an old, but well-kept building. “Where are we going?”

Cold, fat droplets pelt them as they walk briskly towards the building. He follows Darcy inside and through a stairwell. She looks back at him over her shoulder. “This is my place.”

“You’re inviting me up to your place?” A frown furrows his brow. He’s a practically a stranger. As far as he knows, she doesn’t know he’s Captain America, that he’s for sure a good guy. Or that he tries to be a good guy, anyway. And she’s letting him into her home? “I could be a killer.”

“I could be, too,” she says with a slight grin. He feels his own lips curving up in response. “Besides, I’ve taken down guys bigger than you before.”

He doesn’t know what that means, but the building is warm and the company isn’t an Avenger or a SHIELD agent, so there’s something at least. Maybe it isn’t smart but he follows her up two flights of stairs anyhow. Her apartment is small. Like the rest of the building, it shows its age, but it’s well-cared for.

“Make yourself at home,” she says as she strips off her hat and coat, then heads to the tiny kitchenette tucked in the corner. He feels uncomfortably large in the small space, made even smaller by the large, overstuffed couch underneath a window and a wrought-iron coffee table that take up most of the space. In another corner, there’s bookcase overflowing with paperbacks and a handful of hardcovers. The rest of it is a jumble of posters for movies and musicians. He realizes that outside of the fact that she works at Stark Tower, he doesn’t know anything about her. Taking in the posters on the wall, now he knows that she really loves music. His eye catches on one advertising the Glenn Miller Orchestra and it takes him back to a tangle of memories of nights in pubs, watching Bucky and Dum Dum try to sweet talk dames after a successful mission, laughing when those dames bat their eyes at Falsworth and Gabe instead. The memories taste as bitter as they do sweet.

There’s a clatter behind him that makes him turn, and he sees Darcy carrying two mugs to the coffee table. She sits, and he sits with her, trying to leaving his memories behind. Silence fills the space between them, and he casts about for something, anything to say. There’s a picture on the end table on his side of the couch. It’s Darcy, her arms wrapped tight around a dark-haired man who looks strangely familiar. 

“That your guy?” he asks, nodding towards the picture.

“Yeah,” she says, a sad smile curving her lips. “He is. Was. He was who I was visiting today.”

“Oh.” And his heart breaks for her. In so many ways, he feels ancient, far older than how his body looks, far older than the woman at his side. But he knows loss, and so does she, and in a way, it’s a bridge between them. 

“I used to visit him every day,” she says quietly, staring down into her tea. “I don’t go as often these days. Mostly just to talk, to talk out some of my problems.” She breaks off with a laugh that sounds more resigned than anything else. Resigned to her loss, resigned to her life without this man that she loved. “It sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”

Steve shakes his head. He thinks back to the war, after Bucky died, and how late at night, when it looked like the worst was coming, he’d think of his friend, ask him what he should do. Not that he expected an actual answer, or Bucky to come down from the heavens and point the way—he’s not sure Bucky would have even liked Heaven, anyway. But the thought was comforting. It still is.

“It’s not crazy. How did he—“ Heat suffuses his cheeks as he realizes what he’s said. “I’m sorry, that’s none of my business.”

“No. It’s okay. He was a…he was in law enforcement. He died during the alien attack thing. I was out of the country, and it was a week before I even knew.” It’s then he remembers. This same young man sitting at a computer station in the helicarrier, and then later, his body laid out, eyes closed, with the rest of the dead. He swallows hard and feels inexplicable guilt. She reaches across him and picks up the frame, her finger stroking the frame in a familiar and comforting gesture. She smiles sadly. “In those first few weeks, everyone said that at least he died a hero. Like that was supposed to help. It didn’t change the fact that he’s dead.”

He understands that feeling. “I had a friend who died. In the war. He was my best friend, my only family. When he died, there were people that tried that line on me. It didn’t mean anything. Not then anyway.”

“And does it now?” she asks quietly.

“Yeah. I think it does.” And he’s surprised to realize that that’s the truth.

Another silence. “Is that who you were visiting today?” He looks up and sees her biting her lip, face screwed up in consternation. “Sorry, that was nosy.”

Maybe, but it’s no nosier than he’d been a moment before. “No. Another friend.”

“I’m sorry. Another soldier you served with?”

“How did you know I served?” he asks cautiously.

“Stark hires a lot of vets. I just assumed you were one of them.” When he stares at her, she shrugs and takes another sip of her tea. “And there’s something in the shoulders.”

“I lost my whole unit.” It’s not what he meant to say. Or maybe it as. Maybe he’s needed to tell someone, and Darcy—well she seems like she’d understand. Not that the others wouldn’t, because he’s sure they’ve lost people, too. How could they be in this line of business and _not_? But it doesn’t feel right talking about the Commandos to the others. Not yet. With Darcy, he feels like she’ll keep his secrets, just like he’ll keep hers. And so he tells her about Fernier and Dum Dum and Gabe, about Bucky and Morita and Falsworth. And it feels good to talk about them, to remember. He adapts the stories to modern times, or he tries to, and if he lets a little ‘40s speak slip every now and then, she doesn’t seem to think it’s strange. 

She tells him stories, too, about her guy, Richard, and he aches at the love he hears in her voice, the heartbreak that echoes in her voice, and he thinks of Peggy. But no, he’s not ready to dwell on those memories yet. Instead, he dwells on the happier ones, with the Commandos, and she does the same. The conversation goes on, their mugs long since empty on the table. They talk and weave a web of comfort that doesn’t soften the agony of loss, but makes it easier to bear. It feels good to talk about his friends. He knows Darcy feels the same.

Eventually, the stories run dry. Darcy turns on music, and as the opening strains of “Moonlight Serenade” fill the air, they lose themselves in their own memories as they sit in companionable silence. 

“Why did you invite me here?” Steve asks when the song winds down and “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” takes its place. He’d been wondering since she first invited him in.

“I don’t like drinking tea alone,” she jokes, closing her eyes and swaying slightly to the song. There are memories for her in the music, just like there are for him. Maybe one day he’ll ask her.

He smiles. “Why?”

She shrugs and opens her eyes to look over at him. The corners of her lips turn up in sad smile. “I know what loneliness looks like.”

He reaches out and covers her hand in a tentative gesture of friendship, of comfort. “Thank you.”


End file.
